Nearly half of all American adults—90 million people—are functionally illiterate. Eight million students have been labeled as “learning disabled,” the answer to which isn’t the “three Rs” but prescription drugs. While the cost of this crisis to governments, businesses and taxpayers runs in the trillions of dollars, the cost in human terms is incalculable.

Recognizing the failings of the system as early as the 1950s, L. Ron Hubbard developed an actual “technology” of learning with which to master any subject. These educational breakthroughs are collectively known as Study Technology[2] and provide students at every age and educational level the ingredient missing from modern education—namely, learning how to learn.

For more than three decades, the introduction of Study Technology into schools and universities was largely a grassroots effort initiated by educators united under the banner of Applied Scholastics. Today that grassroots campaign represents a worldwide movement based at the Applied Scholastics International[3] headquarters and training center. Opened in 2003, the 100-acre campus is located in the Spanish Lake district of St. Louis, Missouri.

The vision to provide such an emanation point from which to make Study Technology broadly available to educators resulted in, by the end of 2009, 760 Applied Scholastics groups, over twice the number formed in the previous 30 years. Additionally, educators from some 74 nations had trained in Study Technology, including India, Japan, Palestine and Swaziland. Given those teachers then train colleagues and students on Study Technology[4], those who have benefited from the Study Technology since the opening of the international headquarters presently number upwards of 28 million.